This invention relates generally to the integral molding of a musical instrument neck during which a fingerboard is bonded to the neck, and, more specifically, to the integral molding of guitar necks using a fiber-reinforced plastic composite strip wrapped around a neck insert and bonded to a fingerboard during a single molding operation.
Musical instrument necks have traditionally been formed of wood, with a fingerboard bonded thereto after fabrication of the neck. More recently, an increasing number of musical instrument necks, especially those of guitars, have been constructed of plastic, reinforced by metal bars or fiber/plastic composites. A typical example of a fiber-reinforced plastic neck is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,313,362 (Lieber) and 4,145,948 (Turner). Most fabrication techniques do not encompass integral molding of the neck, together with bonding of the fingerboard and the peghead, being that a simple and yet reliable process for doing so has been lacking.
Conventional molding processes used in the construction of plastic guitars continue, in large part, to follow the same fabrication used in making wood guitars; i.e., the fingerboard is bonded to a completed plastic neck following the molding process. In a typical construction of a fiber-reinforced plastic composite guitar neck, for example, the neck is separately formed and cured, and a bridging point is laminated to the unfinished, upper surface of the cured neck, following which the fingerboard is laminated to the bridging strip and cured to yield the completed neck.
The molding process of this invention allows the one-piece, one-step construction of a composite musical instrument neck with fingerboard as well as peghead bonded thereto in a single operation. The relative ease of employing such process makes possible lower cost fabrication of musical instrument necks, as well as fabrication of such necks on an automated basis.